My background is acting. I trained at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama in the late 1960s and spent the first fifteen years of my working life as a professional actor mainly in Rep (the UK then numerous world renowned Regional Repertory Theatres) with the odd foray into television and radio. Highlights include touring to the Edinburgh Festival, played at the National Theatre at the Old Vic in ‘The Alchemist’ and in Jonathan Miller’s production of King Lear’ with Michael Hordern, playing the title role in ‘Miss Julie’ at the Roundhouse Studio and the Mollie Ralston, the female lead in year 29 of ‘The Mousetrap’ at St Martin’s Theatre in the heart of London’s West End.

After The Mousetrap I got a ‘proper’ job in television; initially as a presenter for ITV Central (The ITV Network Franchise holder for the Midland region) before moving sideways to behind the camera, initially as a researcher then as a producer of factual programmes. At the same time, I built a parallel freelance career as a voice actor – which as it turned out, was a very smart move! Alongside producing numerous documentary series and one-off programmes in which I was responsible for research, casting, crew and location logistics, scripting, directing and editing in both location and studio-based projects, I narrated over 50 documentaries for ITV. Following redundancy, I briefly returned to my roots as an actor and theatre producer and became head of learning at Derby Playhouse teaching acting and voice to theatre students before returning full time to voice work.

I have recorded audio across all genres from audio description to e-learning, video games to documentary narration, but since 2013 have concentrated on audiobooks, mostly recorded remotely from my personal professional recording space. I have narrated for Harper Audio, Penguin Random House and Audible Studios in both the US and the UK; for Blackstone Audio, Disney Publications, Macmillan Audio, Brilliance Audiobooks, Hachette, Dreamscape, Simon and Schuster, Findaway and Spoken Realms in the US; and for numerous UK publishers including Ukemi Audiobooks, WF Howes Ltd, Quercus, Whole Story Audiobooks, Ulverscroft Ltd. Bonnier, Bolinda,  Rosa and Lamplight Audio.

I began coaching in 2018 – because people kept asking for my help to up their game. Coaching brings all my skills together – I know how storytelling works, how to bring other people’s words to life: after all, I’ve spent most of my career speaking other people’s words or putting words into other people’s mouths.

I am also a founding parter in Raconteurs Audio LLP. Raconteurs is an Audie nominated and multi earphones award winning audiobook production and publication company and though we are small, we are growing rapidly and have a reputation for producing high quality audiobooks with a network of proven narrators across multiple genres, working directly with authors and as publisher production partners. In 2024, I was awarded a Creative Writing Master’s degree with Distinction from the University of Hull and am currently working on a collection of short stories and am doing the final edit of ‘The Audiobook Book’, which is due to be published early next year.